The tension between whether November’s midterm cycle is a contrast election between Democrats and Republicans or a referendum on President Joe Biden has only increased with Rep. Liz Cheney‘s (R-WY) primary ouster.
Cheney’s concession speech doubled as the launch of her new million-dollar leadership political action committee, which is dedicated to defeating Republicans backed by former President Donald Trump who have amplified his claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Although political conditions have improved for Democrats, Cheney’s move will likely nationalize competitive House and Senate races to the benefit and detriment of Democrats.
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Democrats dispute that their 2022 strategy is defined by Trump, instead more broadly by so-called MAGA Republicans and their own accomplishments. But while Cheney may help Democrats compare themselves to Trump Republicans, nationalizing certain campaigns may also open opportunities for GOP candidates to push Democrats, many of whom have distanced themselves from Biden, on the president’s record. Cheney’s own defeat may illustrate the perils of an incumbent being out of step with the district.
“If Democrats want to run on a ticket with one of the most unpopular presidents in modern history, they can have at it,” Republican National Committee spokeswoman Nicole Morales told the Washington Examiner. “Perhaps Democrats will stop avoiding Biden at every turn and finally take ownership for rubber-stamping Biden’s agenda that created historic inflation, high gas prices, a recession, and higher taxes.”
Context and candidates dictate how dominant national issues will be in a race, according to Berwood Yost, director of Franklin & Marshall College’s Center for Opinion Research.
“In a midterm, it’s normally just people reacting about the president’s performance, and it doesn’t usually go well for the president’s party,” he said.
But for Yost, who has contributed to the forthcoming book Are All Politics Nationalized?, that conventional wisdom may not hold this November because of the Supreme Court‘s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Democrats’ unexpected legislative victories, which have partly stabilized Biden’s dismal polling. Those wins include this week’s signing of the long-awaited $750 billion Inflation Reduction Act, 18 months after the party’s first Democrats-only spending bill, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act. Republicans maintain, though, that the latest climate, healthcare, and tax measure will eventually prove unpopular with voters.
“It isn’t just now about the president,” Yost said. “Maybe the right question is: Do those two issues give the Democratic candidates running additional ways of thinking about how to campaign?”
Democrats, including Senate candidates Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), have opted not to attend Biden events hosted by their states in the past. Fetterman, for example, was reportedly poised to snub Biden during a January visit after last year’s passage of the $550 billion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, but he ended up appearing alongside the president after 10 people were injured in a Pittsburgh bridge collapse earlier that day.
Amid better polls and falling gas prices, observers will now watch to see whether the likes of Fetterman and Ryan will greet Biden when he travels to Pennsylvania and Ohio on his midterm tour. The White House has already announced that Biden will be in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 30 to deliver remarks on his plan “to further reduce gun crime and save lives” after Congress cleared the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act this summer. The president is also anticipated to be at Intel’s New Albany, Ohio, groundbreaking after Congress agreed to the $280 billion bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act last month.
“Pennsylvania isn’t necessarily Ohio,” Yost said from his Lancaster, Pennsylvania, base. “Pennsylvania is a state that Biden carried, and he’s got a long history and a long relationship with the state.”
“Fetterman has actually been running against Washington in all forms,” he added. “[Even] if inflation kind of dials back a bit and people are feeling a little better, I suspect Fetterman is going to run the same campaign. He’s going to run as an outsider. He’s going to run as someone who doesn’t look like a politician and doesn’t act like one.”
David Cohen, director of the University of Akron’s applied politics program, agreed Ryan would adopt a similar approach despite his status as a sitting member and involvement with the semiconductors bill.
“In a way, they’re both speaking to the same people in their respective states,” he said. “Both their campaigns have been targeted at the working class in Ohio and in Pennsylvania, and they’re both trying to enlarge the tents and bring in independents and disaffected Republicans.”
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Cheney is set to redirect roughly $7 million from her campaign to others contesting the midterm elections. Democrats have overtaken Republicans in RealClearPolitics‘s generic congressional ballot polling average with a 0.2-percentage-point edge. Republicans still have a 71% chance of controlling the House, but Democrats have a 63% chance of retaining the Senate, according to FiveThirtyEight.
